No. 4:?Police-involved shooting results in $200M lawsuit

January 1, 2014

MARTINSBURG - A police-involved shooting that resulted in the death of a Virginia man in downtown Martinsburg resulted in his family filing a $200 million lawsuit against the city and prompted their attorney to call for a federal investigation; however, in October, a Berkeley County grand jury declined to return an indictment against the five city police officers involved in the incident.

Wayne Arnold Jones, 50, of Stephens City, was fatally shot March 13 following an incident that began in the vicinity of the 100 block of South Queen Street. Jones was shot with a Taser twice and later was fatally shot when police say he stabbed an officer with a knife, causing a minor wound when the weapon penetrated the officer's vest.

Grand jurors declined to return an indictment Oct. 16 after the findings of an independent investigation led by the West Virginia State Police were presented to them over the course of about four hours. The decision by the grand jury meant that the five officers involved in the shooting no longer faced the prospect of state criminal charges or prosecution.

As a result, Sherman Lambert, the attorney representing Jones' family in the federal lawsuit, said he intended to contact the U.S. Department of Justice to request that a federal investigation be conducted into the shooting.

The federal lawsuit filed in June by two of Jones's brothers, the administrators of his estate, accuses police of using unreasonable and excessive force, alleging officers shot Jones 15 to 25 times while he was on the ground.

Jones' family originally filed suit against the city, the Martinsburg Police Department and the officers involved in the shooting, but a federal judge dismissed the police department as a defendant in the lawsuit in August.

The civil case is currently scheduled to go to trial in July 2015.

Prior to the shooting, officers ordered Jones, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, to place his hands on a cruiser so that a weapon, which he allegedly told them he had, could be removed. Police say Jones refused and became increasingly angry. Officers used a taser to attempt to gain control of Jones. When it proved ineffective, a second taser was used, police say.

Jones remained out of police control and fled to a doorway entrance in the 100 block of South Queen Street. There, after Jones refused more verbal commands, officers attempted to restrain him using physical force.

While officers were attempting to restrain Jones, police say he pulled out a knife and stabbed an officer in the torso, forcing officers to back off. Police say that when Jones continued to disobey orders to drop the knife and attempted to get back to his feet, officers used their weapons to "fire multiple rounds into the subject, which neutralized the threat," according to a press release issued after the shooting.